thedrifter
04-09-03, 08:07 PM
Whose 'Vietnam Syndrome'?
A sickness that strikes only the journalistic and political elites.
BY ROBERT L. BARTLEY
Monday, April 7, 2003 12:01 a.m. EDT
Military history will record the Iraqi campaign as the stunning advent of a new level of warfare. Combined arms teams dropped a bunker buster on enemy commanders on opening night, rushed to secure the oil fields before they could be set afire, foreclosed launching areas for missiles aimed at Israel, set the enemy reeling before he could launch chemical weapons and took the Baghdad airport in 15 days.
Along the way there was a spot of trouble with irregulars attacking supply lines, and advancing troops pulled up to let air power decimate Republican Guard tanks dug in against ground attack and frozen against air attack. In the press, this event set off a caterwaul of defeat.
Gen. Barry McCaffrey and a few other retirees carpet bombed talk shows with pleas for more tanks. The New York Times sprouted the front-page headline "Bush Peril: Shifting Sand and Fickle Opinion" over its most prestigious byline, R.W. Apple Jr. Columnist Paul Krugman sneered, "Pundits are wondering how Mr. Cheney--who confidently predicted that our soldiers would be 'greeted as liberators'--could be so wrong."
By now Gen. McCaffrey has written in our pages that while more tanks would have been better, the campaign has been "impressive" and the forces "superb." Mr. Apple has honorably eaten crow with Saturday's front-page dispatch, "Dash to Baghdad Leaves Debate in Dust." We await Mr. Krugman's view of the smiling and waving crowds that greeted the 101st Airborne at Najaf.
It was a perfect demonstration of how the day's news is ordered less by underlying events than by the stereotypes that journalists apply to them--with hiccups in reality switching the prevailing stereotype from short war to long war and back again. Importantly, however, the caterwaul reflected an underlying longtime stereotype, the "Vietnam syndrome."
The notion is that U.S. opinion is "fickle," ready to turn against a war at the first sight of "body bags." The notion would be bad enough merely among journalists, but it has also prevailed at the White House and Pentagon, and, still worse, among the likes of Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden. It is almost entirely a myth, based on a misunderstanding of both the American public and the Vietnam experience.
Consider for example the polling results displayed in the accompanying chart. Since the first Gulf War, the Gallup Poll has asked more than two dozen times whether the public supports or opposes using U.S. troops to seek regime change in Iraq. Support has never failed to achieve a majority, and reached 74% after the September 11 terrorist attacks. It was 70% back in 1993, when it became clear Saddam would not fall in the wake of his first defeat. On Iraq, in short, the public has been way out in front of its leaders.
Eric V. Larson of RAND has spent years weighing what kind of war the public will support (a paper is accessible at here). He concludes that casualties and other costs are but one of three elements of the public calculus. The other two are, quite sensibly, the importance of the objective and the likelihood of success. The public is not willing to pay a high cost in Somalia or Bosnia, but will bear casualties to succeed in making an important difference.
In Iraq, Mr. Larson tells me, "to my eye it seems to be pretty robust support." The public agrees with the stakes, thinks them achievable and seems "willing to stick it out as long is the result is Saddam and his regime being overthrown."
Even in Vietnam, he says, support didn't "go below the 50% mark until we'd taken tens of thousands of casualties." But as the war went on its importance seemed to decrease, with the domino theory looking less threatening after events such as the defeat of the Communist coup in Indonesia in 1965. And the likelihood of success seemed to diminish, particularly after the 1968 Tet offensive. In particular, Tet extinguished a current of sentiment that actually wanted to escalate the conflict. The offensive was a military defeat for the North Vietnamese, we now understand, but it shocked the public fed a diet of "light at the end of the tunnel."
It was, however, no surprise to our commanders. Six weeks before, General William Westmoreland wired Washington that the enemy had explicitly decided that on current trends it was losing, and had decided "to undertake an intensified countrywide effort, perhaps a maximum effort, over a relatively short period." After receiving this message on an around-the-word trip, President Johnson privately told allied leaders in Australia that he was expecting "kamikaze tactics" and "a wave of suicide attacks."
President Johnson and his people never shared such talk with the public. This grotesque lapse, not body bags, cost him the people, and the war. More broadly, too, it was a mistake consistent with his conduct of the war. He could scarcely withdraw, having inherited the mess from the martyred John F. Kennedy in the wake of the U.S.-sponsored coup against South Vietnamese leader Ngo Dinh Diem. But he was unwilling to rally the nation. Even when he landed combat units and starting bombing the North in 1965, it was coupled with restrictions on targets, bombing "halts" and pleas that the North "negotiate."
President Johnson was in many ways a tragic figure, a victim of history and circumstance. But as a war leader he understood neither the enemy he faced nor the people he led, and the myths that encrusted Vietnam have bedeviled America's role in the world ever since. Fortunately Ronald Reagan understood about rallying the people, and under his leadership the U.S. consummated its Cold War victory. Vietnam now seems one losing battle in a successful 50-year campaign.
The lingering "Vietnam syndrome" is a sickness not of the people but of elites in journalism, politics and the bureaucracy. The Bush team understands, with its emphasis on "regime change," its willingness to stay the course, its refusal to "deal." This president knows that so long as leaders don't blink, the people can be a rock.
Mr. Bartley is editor emeritus of The Wall Street Journal. His column appears Mondays in the Journal and on OpinionJournal.com.
Support for Regime Change
"Would you favor or oppose invading Iraq with U.S. ground troops in an attempt to remove Saddam Hussein from power?" March 2003 64%
March 2003* 58%
February 2003 59%
January 2003 56%
December 2002 58%
November 2002 59%
* ". . . in the next week or two . . ."
"Would you favor or oppose sending American ground troops to the Persian Gulf in order to remove Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq?"
October 2002 53%
September 2002 58%
August 2002 53%
June 2002 61%
"Would you favor or oppose sending American troops back to the Persian Gulf in order to remove Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq?" November 2001 74%
February 2001 52%
June 1993 70%
March/April 1992 55%
Source: Gallup Poll
Sempers,
Roger
A sickness that strikes only the journalistic and political elites.
BY ROBERT L. BARTLEY
Monday, April 7, 2003 12:01 a.m. EDT
Military history will record the Iraqi campaign as the stunning advent of a new level of warfare. Combined arms teams dropped a bunker buster on enemy commanders on opening night, rushed to secure the oil fields before they could be set afire, foreclosed launching areas for missiles aimed at Israel, set the enemy reeling before he could launch chemical weapons and took the Baghdad airport in 15 days.
Along the way there was a spot of trouble with irregulars attacking supply lines, and advancing troops pulled up to let air power decimate Republican Guard tanks dug in against ground attack and frozen against air attack. In the press, this event set off a caterwaul of defeat.
Gen. Barry McCaffrey and a few other retirees carpet bombed talk shows with pleas for more tanks. The New York Times sprouted the front-page headline "Bush Peril: Shifting Sand and Fickle Opinion" over its most prestigious byline, R.W. Apple Jr. Columnist Paul Krugman sneered, "Pundits are wondering how Mr. Cheney--who confidently predicted that our soldiers would be 'greeted as liberators'--could be so wrong."
By now Gen. McCaffrey has written in our pages that while more tanks would have been better, the campaign has been "impressive" and the forces "superb." Mr. Apple has honorably eaten crow with Saturday's front-page dispatch, "Dash to Baghdad Leaves Debate in Dust." We await Mr. Krugman's view of the smiling and waving crowds that greeted the 101st Airborne at Najaf.
It was a perfect demonstration of how the day's news is ordered less by underlying events than by the stereotypes that journalists apply to them--with hiccups in reality switching the prevailing stereotype from short war to long war and back again. Importantly, however, the caterwaul reflected an underlying longtime stereotype, the "Vietnam syndrome."
The notion is that U.S. opinion is "fickle," ready to turn against a war at the first sight of "body bags." The notion would be bad enough merely among journalists, but it has also prevailed at the White House and Pentagon, and, still worse, among the likes of Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden. It is almost entirely a myth, based on a misunderstanding of both the American public and the Vietnam experience.
Consider for example the polling results displayed in the accompanying chart. Since the first Gulf War, the Gallup Poll has asked more than two dozen times whether the public supports or opposes using U.S. troops to seek regime change in Iraq. Support has never failed to achieve a majority, and reached 74% after the September 11 terrorist attacks. It was 70% back in 1993, when it became clear Saddam would not fall in the wake of his first defeat. On Iraq, in short, the public has been way out in front of its leaders.
Eric V. Larson of RAND has spent years weighing what kind of war the public will support (a paper is accessible at here). He concludes that casualties and other costs are but one of three elements of the public calculus. The other two are, quite sensibly, the importance of the objective and the likelihood of success. The public is not willing to pay a high cost in Somalia or Bosnia, but will bear casualties to succeed in making an important difference.
In Iraq, Mr. Larson tells me, "to my eye it seems to be pretty robust support." The public agrees with the stakes, thinks them achievable and seems "willing to stick it out as long is the result is Saddam and his regime being overthrown."
Even in Vietnam, he says, support didn't "go below the 50% mark until we'd taken tens of thousands of casualties." But as the war went on its importance seemed to decrease, with the domino theory looking less threatening after events such as the defeat of the Communist coup in Indonesia in 1965. And the likelihood of success seemed to diminish, particularly after the 1968 Tet offensive. In particular, Tet extinguished a current of sentiment that actually wanted to escalate the conflict. The offensive was a military defeat for the North Vietnamese, we now understand, but it shocked the public fed a diet of "light at the end of the tunnel."
It was, however, no surprise to our commanders. Six weeks before, General William Westmoreland wired Washington that the enemy had explicitly decided that on current trends it was losing, and had decided "to undertake an intensified countrywide effort, perhaps a maximum effort, over a relatively short period." After receiving this message on an around-the-word trip, President Johnson privately told allied leaders in Australia that he was expecting "kamikaze tactics" and "a wave of suicide attacks."
President Johnson and his people never shared such talk with the public. This grotesque lapse, not body bags, cost him the people, and the war. More broadly, too, it was a mistake consistent with his conduct of the war. He could scarcely withdraw, having inherited the mess from the martyred John F. Kennedy in the wake of the U.S.-sponsored coup against South Vietnamese leader Ngo Dinh Diem. But he was unwilling to rally the nation. Even when he landed combat units and starting bombing the North in 1965, it was coupled with restrictions on targets, bombing "halts" and pleas that the North "negotiate."
President Johnson was in many ways a tragic figure, a victim of history and circumstance. But as a war leader he understood neither the enemy he faced nor the people he led, and the myths that encrusted Vietnam have bedeviled America's role in the world ever since. Fortunately Ronald Reagan understood about rallying the people, and under his leadership the U.S. consummated its Cold War victory. Vietnam now seems one losing battle in a successful 50-year campaign.
The lingering "Vietnam syndrome" is a sickness not of the people but of elites in journalism, politics and the bureaucracy. The Bush team understands, with its emphasis on "regime change," its willingness to stay the course, its refusal to "deal." This president knows that so long as leaders don't blink, the people can be a rock.
Mr. Bartley is editor emeritus of The Wall Street Journal. His column appears Mondays in the Journal and on OpinionJournal.com.
Support for Regime Change
"Would you favor or oppose invading Iraq with U.S. ground troops in an attempt to remove Saddam Hussein from power?" March 2003 64%
March 2003* 58%
February 2003 59%
January 2003 56%
December 2002 58%
November 2002 59%
* ". . . in the next week or two . . ."
"Would you favor or oppose sending American ground troops to the Persian Gulf in order to remove Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq?"
October 2002 53%
September 2002 58%
August 2002 53%
June 2002 61%
"Would you favor or oppose sending American troops back to the Persian Gulf in order to remove Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq?" November 2001 74%
February 2001 52%
June 1993 70%
March/April 1992 55%
Source: Gallup Poll
Sempers,
Roger